Movies, music, and other forms of digital content are provided to our computers over the Internet virtually everyday. We receive news, education, and entertainment, as well as many other forms of digital content. However, for a variety of reasons, some of this content is protected. Such protections may take the form of requiring a license that at least identifies various rights to use, play, copy, and/or distribute the associated content. Other protections may include various levels of types of encryption protection that may necessitate a key in order to decrypt the content. However, it may also be the case that the content is either partially protected or not protected at all. Thus, many of today's systems download the content, before they are able to determine whether a key or license is required. Based on this determination, a key and/or license acquisition process may then be performed. These actions, plus downloading the content stream and decompressing the content stream, often means that the consumer waits for some period of time before the requested content may start to play on his or her client device. This delayed time, is sometimes known as a time to first frame for play of the content. This time to first frame may in some instances be such that the consumer becomes frustrated waiting for the content to play. When consumers become frustrated, they may elect not continue to request the content, resulting in possible lose of revenue for content providers, advertisers, or the like. Thus, it is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.